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Wenger on Campbell, Akpom, rule changes

Arsene Wenger faced the media on Friday morning ahead of Saturday's game at Watford.

Read on for extra quotes from the boss as he discusses Joel Campbell, rule changes and the next batch of Arsenal youngsters knocking on his door.

on Joel Campbell’s loan…
I believe that he’s a bit of a victim of the size of the squad. He is now at an age where he needs to play more regularly and I don’t rule out that he comes back here and plays. He has gone to Sporting Lisbon and I think it’s an interesting championship. Portugal always has an interesting championship and let’s see how it goes for him.

on penalties now being given for grappling…
We discussed that not only with the players but with the referees. I believe that could be interesting as well. What I see more and more is the position of the referees during the game, many times they are in the way of the game, of the pass or the next pass because they want to be too close to the ball. That is a very interesting debate, I think. The difficult on corners is sometimes you have three different fouls and the referee has to choose the most obvious one. What is not easy is first to see everything, when you watch a game you see only on slow motion that there were two or three other fouls on the corner. So what you want is that it becomes cleaner, yes. In the past there were many attempts to clear that out and it never worked.

on players not wanting to play out of position…
I believe that to sign a contract with a club is firstly a social contract. That means social responsibility towards the club and the team and to serve the best interests of the club. If that coincides with your own interests, it’s even better. But the priority is of course first to serve the club.

on giving youth players a chance…
We have a few who are had a very good pre-season like Chris Willock, Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Chuba Akpom. They are the three who have been outstanding - Krystian Bielik as well has done extremely well. They could play.

 

More quizzes coming soon!